{"id":542,"date":"2010-07-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-06T23:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/?p=542"},"modified":"2024-12-31T14:16:40","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T01:16:40","slug":"dear-husband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2010\/07\/17\/dear-husband\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Husband"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><strong>Joyce Carol Oates<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><em>HarperCollins<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Otago Daily Times, July 17th 2010<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In direct contrast to the modern-day fables of <em>Once Upon a time in Aotearoa<\/em>, the characters in Joyce Carol Oates\u2019 new collection <em>Dear Husband <\/em>live lives of quiet desperation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Trapped by past events, relationships, duty or love, people batter themselves against the walls of their lives likes moths against a lighted window. Oates writes with an intensity that draws the reader into her characters world, and she does not pull her punches.\u00a0 Real life is not a fairy-tale, and bad things happen, particularly within the claustrophobic confines of family. In \u2018Vigilante\u2019 and \u201cCutty Sark\u201d, for example, the passions generated between mothers and their adolescent sons spills over into violence and self-destruction.\u00a0 Or in \u2018Panic\u2019, a man is unable to forgive his wife for choosing to save their infant daughter rather than protect him. Particularly disturbing are the title story (based on real events) and \u201cThe Heart Sutra\u201d in which we watch helplessly as women contemplate infanticide. Although I am still haunted by them, I was so drawn into their world I could not put the book down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">On the other hand, Oates also possesses a quite wicked black humour. \u2018Suicide by Fitness Centre\u2019 was worth it for the title alone, whilst in \u2018Dear Joyce Carol\u2019, the author takes an ironic dig at both herself and at literary fandom in extremis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"> I recommend <em>Dear Husband<\/em> to anybody who has ever wondered why people bother with short stories, as well as those who already appreciate the form. But be prepared. This collection is powerful, disturbing, and heartbreaking.\u00a0 You will be thinking about it long after you have put it down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.odt.co.nz\/entertainment\/books\/while-gods-walk-among-us-aotearoa-other-lives-are-not-so-blessed\">https:\/\/www.odt.co.nz\/entertainment\/books\/while-gods-walk-among-us-aotearoa-other-lives-are-not-so-blessed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joyce Carol Oates<br \/>\n<br \/>\nOtago Daily Times review July 17th 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[115,370,121,18,375],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-115","tag-fiction","tag-joyce-carol-oates","tag-odt","tag-short-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1458,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions\/1458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}